Arianna Huffington's $18 Million Moment

The $315 million AOL paid for the Huffington Post got media types talking. But how much of that went to Arianna Huffington herself? According to the Drudge Report, Huffington, who co-founded the Huffington Post in 2005,
is expected to net $18 million from the deal, and earn about $4 million a
year in her new role overseeing AOL's editorial operation. Because the Huffington Post isn't a public company, nailing down
just how much each partner gets depends on solid insider information or
public disclosure. But as The Guardian's Graeme Wearden notes "some
shareholders must be sitting on very large returns, as the company has
received just $37m of funding over the last six years." But even with those kinds of returns, people are still asking whether Huffington and her partners could have scored even bigger with an IPO or another suitor.

This Was Easy Money Business Insider's Nicholas Carlson argues that AOL's offer to pay cash now was a lot more attractive than an IPO. With $300 million cash in
play, Huffington and her partners had the choice of taking a guaranteed
payout over the risky move of having to raise money or go public. The latter, Carlson, says could have taken years, and "there
would be no guarantee that the IPO market would be there when you wanted
it." Even worse, Carlson says the economy could have completely tanked
when and if an IPO finally came to fruition, leaving Huffington and her
partners holding the bag, unable "to even cash out."

There Was No Better Offer Dismissing Huffington's assertion that "the Huffington Post was not for sale," Business Insider's Carlson says of course it was for sale--"Huffpo has talked to NBC and Yahoo in the past 6 months. NBC, presumably, wouldn't have gotten anywhere near this price. Yahoo, apparently, was moving at a glacial pace."

The Deal Gives HuffPo Credibility For all the content pouring through the Huffington Post's 26 channels, The Los Angeles Times' Jessica Guynn says it wasn't taken seriously in the realm of journalism because it aggregates content instead of creating it. With AOL's
tech, auto and local news sites, the Huffington Post can get some
credibility.

But was it a good deal? Gawker's Nick Denton quipped, "I thought they were holding out for a billion."

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